About
John is an American technologist and design leader who has spent his career translating between the worlds of computation, design, and business. It's a bridging act Wired once summed up this way: "Maeda is to design what Warren Buffett is to finance." He currently leads design across GitHub and Microsoft CoreAI as Corporate Vice President of Engineering, and serves on the board of directors of MillerKnoll. His path there runs through the MIT Media Lab, the presidency of the Rhode Island School of Design, a design partner role at Kleiner Perkins, and executive roles at Automattic, Publicis Sapient, and Everbridge. The author of five books, including The Laws of Simplicity and How to Speak Machine, he has seen his work enter the permanent collections of MoMA and the Cartier Foundation, and he was the first recipient of the White House National Design Award. Off the clock, he collects seashells whose patterns mimic Rule 30 of Wolfram's cellular automata, proof that even his beachcombing is computational.